Filtering Out Reality

May 17, 2016

3 minute read

Instagram

Despite rumblings over the past couple of years, I feel like the consequences of Instagram are only just starting to appear. There’s been a big focus on mental health in the past couple of weeks and while I’m no expert in that field, Instagram has an obvious cause and effect in reducing people to a shadow of their real selves in more ways than one.

Filtering away the realities has to have a consequence on not only self-perception but also on how you’re perceived by others. I can remember when I first started blogging I had a funny little camera with a ‘beauty button’ that flashed a flattering light and diffused the picture. I was pretty pleased with myself in that picture, to be honest, until I got the ultimate reality check at a beauty launch where a young blogger was so shocked at the difference between fact and fiction, he couldn’t help saying, ‘you look NOTHING like your picture’. That was enough of a reality check for me to know that I was never, in reality, going to live up to the impossibility of that picture.

Apart from using a filter to add light if the picture is too dark, I have never since altered any picture of myself. I don’t post many selfies and there aren’t that many pictures of me floating around, but I’m on Periscope several times a week and have a very neglected YouTube channel, so the reality is definitely there to see. If I’m blessed with a flattering light that’s a bonus but I don’t mind being a real person.

Instagram is an unstoppable force of distortion and while beauty brands are leaping on this easy way to promote products, they’re not asking women to recreate themselves – women are doing this all on their own. It’s true that brands can cherry pick the prettiest, glossiest and lashiest Instagrammers to regram or flag as fine representation of their brands, but so it ever was. Filters make the new – and often free – models for makeup and the more beautiful you can make yourself, the more worthy you are of attention. Beauty brands must be clapping their hands with glee at the wealth of material.

Instagram

But, what’s it going to take for this filtered existence to break? It’s not as though we’re not riddled with self-doubt and insecurities as it is – masking them with great lighting and creating characters every bit as unreal as Lara Croft is never going to end well. If you take into account the legions of bought followers (which if you’re making money based on that following, is actually fraud) that make people look more popular than they actually are, you’re left with someone who doesn’t actually exist, fooling the rest of the world into thinking they’re both unusually beautiful and incredibly popular. Imagine how empty that’s going to feel eventually.

We’re in a world where women and girls need every scrap of encouragement to feel confident in themselves. Pretend confidence is no more useful than pretend friends and Instagram makes it easy to have both.

Critics used to level unreality at bloggers and vloggers, but they’re nothing in comparison to something that’s almost entirely picture based. Words can be so powerful in telling a story in a way that a picture, with no context, never can. A filtered face is one step too far away from the all-important emotional connection that brands rely on and as is happening, many Insta-faces are starting to look the same. It’s these same-faces that blur the lines between what’s real and what isn’t because I’ll put money down that behind the filters are men and women wondering who they truly are and who they can be without a camera.

I love looking at Instagram and follow some diverse accounts, not least to keep unreality from being all I ever see. But, I reckon that eventually Instagram will churn out people with emotional and confidence issues that no app can fix.

*all products are sent to me as samples from brands and agencies unless otherwise stated. Affiliate links may be used. Posts are not affiliate driven.

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15 comments

I recently told my friend’s daughter who is thinking of going into the medical field to go into psychology because it will be big money because of the insecurities fueled by the internet. Of course, it was somewhat of a joke.

I remember in my youth, I thought I was just one ugly Asian girl because magazines showed these beautiful Caucasian models with such gorgeous skin and makeup and not to mention the long legs and slim waistlines. I realized all this was fake and retouched. These ad agencies hired retouch professionals who back then did everything manually, no app.

Once the internet opened up I finally got to see real everyday people and all with a unique beauty. How wonderful it was to see different walks of life and different faces. Surely people would feel better and realize magazine beauty is not real life.

Obviously, that is not the case and beauty on the internet is a much bigger magazine.

I hope and wish that these young people won’t get screwed up with the definition of beauty. I hope they understand the best beauty is one that allows you to see your flaws and allows you to grow into the woman in a life that is your own. No app will do that for anyone.

I think the good thing about apps like Instagram and Twitter is that you can control what you see and who you follow. So, with a conscious decision, you can keep your world as you like it and how it suits you. I try and control, to a certain extent, what I see so that my world stays as real as possible.

great post. This is something I’ve been thinking a lot about recently, there’s huge psychological ramifications of the perceived perfection on Instagram, and we (in the most part) let it wash over us without being critical of it. There’s one particular person who has LOTS of fake followers and has also been accused of using editing software on their selfies. I know through speaking to a few people that this has had a negative effect on their self-perception, and I’m not talking about young girls either. So it really worries me what effect it does have on younger girls/women (and boys too).

I think it’s particularly rife with fitness (or “fitspiration”) on instagram, lots of photoshopping everywhere, gah it’s so depressing. Oh and don’t even get me started on “clean-eating”! I could go on but I better stop here! 😉

Amazing post! I couldn’t agree more. As much as I use Instagram…it’s not real. With filters, lighting, and photoshop…I can never live up to some of these big beauty or fashion bloggers. I lost my photos and even though I don’t have the largest following…at least my feed is real.

Hear hear, Jane. Well said. I don’t know how young people cope with expectations these days. It was bad enough being just over 6′ half a century ago without being expected to look filtered/lighted/popular. So many young people today seem to have problems with mental health and I think a lot of it must come as they grow up, go to college/uni/start work and have to take responsibility for themselves — realising that life isn’t just some fantasy game sort of thing! I’ll stop ranting now but just had to say what a good post yours is.

Sometimes we have to step back and force ourselves to check what is reality and what is not. This is very hard to do but this issue has been there before Instagram, let’s not forget magazines, ads etc.

Great post BBB. I kinda agree. I remember growing up in the 90’s when the iconic supermodels of the time were gracing every magazine cover and it was so in your face that I often didn’t feel beautiful enough to show myself in public.

But of course growing up meant that life goes on and you can’t hide yourself away forever. I think Instagram is like that in that it may make some people feel inadequate but hey, life goes on. In the wider world, no-one cares what you look like and I think some people place WAY too much emphasis on caring about what others think of them.

Eventually the young cohort who are the main consumers of Instagram will stop caring and move on. But yes I agree that Instagram may give rise mental health and body image concerns but these problems have been around since print media began shoving pictures of so-called perfect bodies down women’s throats. This is just another manifestation of that.

It’s so easy to get caught in a social media coma and feel bad about yourself for not living up to the ideal image that Instagram tends to centre around but it is up to individuals to consciously reject that pursuit of perfection and just to be themselves.

Who gives a flying whatever about what are essentially just pictures of random people?? Obviously a lot of people do but there are so many of us that couldn’t give a toss about what so and so is eating or how so and so looks in a bikini. The goal posts will always change and whatever is desirable now will change in a few months.

I had Instagram for about 3 months last year and giggled every time I waded through the fitspo and clean eating pictures. I guess because I’m in my 30’s and I’ve seen this whole ‘perfect body’ shtick in other guises before I can see right through it and it doesn’t bother me one iota.

At my age, I’m more interested in walking around in the sunshine with a huge smile on my dial wearing something bright blue (favorite colour !) rather than cowering in a corner because social media made me feel not good enough!!

I have to admit, that being 28 I see a lot of other youtubers around my age and their Instagram accounts about how amazing their life it, flawless everything. But I have to remember to just take myself out if and remember that it isn’t reality and it’s only a snippet of their life. I also think their life is so amazing and sometimes feel like I haven’t accomplished anything in my life because it’s not as good as theirs. It’s weird, because I don’t think that about other celebrities my age. But youtubers it does- maybe because they’re ‘normal’. I remember to snap out it of it but then realise there are a lot of much younger impressionable girls than me who live and breathe to aspire to be like these people and DON’T realise it’s not really reality.